Washington Steps Back From Policing Indian Lands, Even as Crime Rises

Michael Shockley, right, and Matt Lee, tribal officers, at a basketball game at Wyoming Indian High School on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.Credit
Matthew Staver for The New York Times

The federal government has cut the size of its police force in Indian country, reduced financing for law enforcement and begun fewer investigations of violent felony crime, even as rates of murder and rape there have increased to more than 20 times the national average, according to data.

The data, much of it contained in recently released Justice Department reports, underscores a reputation for chronic lawlessness on Indian reservations, where unchecked crime has for years perplexed federal agencies, which are largely responsible for public safety on Indian lands.

As one illustration of the profound increase in violence in recent years — despite generally declining crime in much of the rest of the nation — F.B.I. crime data reports that the number of reported rapes on the Navajo reservation in the Southwest in the last several years has eclipsed those in nine of America’s 20 largest cities, even though there are only 180,000 people on the reservation.

The reservation’s 374 reported rapes in 2009, for example, outpaced even the total for Detroit, for decades among the nation’s most violent cities, which had 335 rapes that year.

President Obama has called violence on Indian lands “an affront to our shared humanity.” But according to federal figures, his administration has cut both the budget of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and spending on reservation law enforcement. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has opened fewer investigations of violent felonies committed in Indian country than under previous presidents, while pursuing violent crime in the rest of the nation far more aggressively than its predecessors.

From 2000 to 2010, for instance, as crime on some reservations surged by as much as 50 percent, the number of suspects on Indian lands being investigated for violent crime by United States attorneys declined by 3 percent, according to Justice Department figures.

In contrast, while crime fell 13 percent nationally during the same decade, federal prosecutions of violent crime outside Indian country increased by 29 percent.

Further, Indian country had 3,462 full-time police personnel in 2000, a number that now stands at about 3,000, according to Justice Department statistics.

During that time, homicides on Indian lands rose 41 percent to 133 in 2010 from 94 in 2000; rapes increased by nearly 55 percent, to 852 from 550; and arson and robbery rates doubled, according to the F.B.I.

The Justice Department has deployed some 37 extra F.B.I. agents and United States attorneys to Indian country in recent years.

“The attorney general has said this is a priority, and I know he is absolutely committed to the issue,” said Brendan Johnson, the United States attorney for South Dakota, who is also chairman of the agency’s Native American Issues Subcommittee.

Nonetheless, the federal government allocates far less money for public safety on Indian lands than what cities of similar size devote to fighting crime.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, for instance, which along with the Justice Department is responsible for law enforcement for 1.6 million residents spread over 56 million acres of Indian country, distributed $322 million to tribal law enforcement programs in 2012, according to budget outlays.

Photo

Indian country has lost hundreds of police officers since 2000, even though the homicide rate has risen 41 percent, statistics show.Credit
Matthew Staver for The New York Times

But both Philadelphia, which has a population of 1.5 million and a police budget of $552 million, and Phoenix, with 1.4 million people and a $540 million police budget, spend far more on public safety despite having smaller populations and less area to patrol. (Phoenix employs 3,100 officers, while Philadelphia has about 6,400 officers.)

Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, where the number of officers has declined as violence has intensified, had 36 officers in 2000, but now has just 30 to patrol an area larger than Delaware, according to Justice Department data.

On South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (population 40,000), 58 tribal officers in 2000 patrolled 3,470 square miles — one officer per 50 square miles. By 2012, despite growth in both population and crime, the number had fallen to 49.

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“We pick up a guy for some alcohol-related offense and are out of town for an hour taking them to jail, and in the meantime people are here clubbing and stabbing each other,” said Milton Bianis, a tribal officer.

F.B.I. agents have told officers on Pine Ridge that the reservation needs at least 140 officers to handle an epidemic of violence that includes 3,000 child abuse cases and more than 20,000 arrests each year — nearly one arrest for every other resident.

Lawlessness on reservations, and the inability of the federal government to reduce crime, has worn away trust there.

“I’m not going to have a bit of faith in the system unless you make it safe and the guy who did this to me is going to be behind bars for a very long time,” said Gyasi Ross, a Blackfoot Nation tribal member and lawyer, summarizing widely held views about the dangers of reporting crimes. “I need some assurances because I’m taking my life in my hands.”

Tribal officials acknowledge that crime on reservations may actually be 10 times or more higher than official rates because people seldom report violence. Ivan Posey, a member of the Eastern Shoshone Business Council on the violence-plagued Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, said too few resources — and a lack of federal interest — meant “there’s no deterrent for crime.”

Though the federal government has given reservations more authority to prosecute crime in recent years, it has at the same time cut funding for tribal courts.

In Arizona, for instance, the Gila River Indian Community’s courts received no Bureau of Indian Affairs funds from 2008 to 2010, according to records, even though the tribe was inundated with 24,000 new criminal cases (among just 16,700 tribal members).

Tribal courts often lack money to pay per diems for jury duty, and tribes say federal funding barely covers the salaries of court clerks, much less judges. In some places, including Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico, police officers double as prosecutors.

Despite the financing gaps, grants meant to boost public safety on reservations have shrunk, including the Justice Department’s Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation program, which has dropped to $101 million and 200 grants this year, records show, down from $127 million for 301 grants in 2010.

And grants during the past four years from the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women, which has distributed $1.8 billion, have in many cases gone outside Indian lands. Hingham, Mass., for instance, which has a population of 22,157, has received about $1.5 million, and more than $1 million has gone to tiny East Central University in Ada, Okla.

The Emmonak Women’s Shelter, however, which serves Native Alaskans in rural Alaska, has received only $350,000, according to federal figures, and was forced to close this year because it could no longer afford electricity, even after its workers had stopped accepting pay. The shelter recently reopened using emergency federal financing and public donations.

A version of this article appears in print on November 13, 2012, on Page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Washington Steps Back From Policing Indian Lands, Even as Crime Rises. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe